Donald J. Trump for President -vs- Joe Biden for President: A Technical Comparison of Campaign Use of Internet and Social Media SEO Practices
It is time again in late 2020 for The United States of America to select their president. The two major parties have nominated candidates and now they will work to rally support. States will conduct simultaneous elections after months of local and national campaign efforts. This year, 2020, President Trump and former Vice President Biden are fully engaged as of this writing (September 1st, 2020). Both men are well known public figures with their own preferences of policies and personalities. We ignore policy, personality and opinion differences for this article. Instead, we offer a critical examination of key digital footprint parameters resulting from each candidate’s official campaign web site and score of them on purely technical merits.
Title Tags:
|
Title Tag |
Content |
Length characters(pixels) |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Home | Donald J. Trump for President |
36 (270) |
|
|
Biden |
Joe Biden for President: Official Campaign Website |
50 (365) |
|
Biden’s website has well positioned title tag that is clear and signals the most important key words during search. Trump’s title tag on another hand is short in pixels and carries strange “Home” keyword that does not bring much value in search. Winner here: Biden
Meta Description:
|
Meta Description Tag |
Content |
Length characters(pixels) |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Help continue our promise to Keep America Great! |
48 (293) |
|
|
Biden |
We are the United States of America. There is not a single thing we cannot do. Are you with us? Join our campaign to elect Joe Biden today! |
139(811) |
|
Trump’s meta description is short in characters and in pixels and should lower clicks when search results display it. On another hand Biden’s one is well positioned and organically carries the message to maximize click-through rate. Winner here: Biden
Google Preview - Trump’s
Google Preview – Biden’s
Headline Font Types:
|
H1,H2,H3,H4,H5 |
Use |
Winner |
|
Trump |
H1 – 0 H2 – 1 H3 – 1 H4 – 9 H5 - 3 |
|
|
Biden |
H1 – 2 H2 – 10 H3 – 23 H4 – 0 H5 - 3 |
|
We think both websites loose in this category. Trump has no H1 tag and Biden’s for some reason has two. In each case, this is creating penalties with search engines, however penalties are somewhat minimal. Winner here : Neither
Image Attributes:
|
Alt Attribute |
Number of images |
Missing |
Winner |
|
Trump |
1 |
0 |
|
|
Biden |
27 |
0 |
|
Trump’s website has a single image filling the entire landing page with a menu that floats on left for contributions, etc. Meanwhile, Biden’s landing page seems to be refreshed more often with new and multiple images. Scrolling down there are many smaller photos with campaign logo merchandise for sale to help contribute. Unclear if Trump’s lack of images and direct appeal for cash is perceived as straight forward or lacking in merchandising. Biden may provide more personal grass roots “buy-in”, but while that may sell items, it may also dilute his message. Winner here: Tie
Language Tag:
|
Language Tag |
Declared |
Content |
Winner |
|
Trump |
English |
<html lang="en">
|
|
|
Biden |
English Spanish |
<html lang=”en-US” class=”no-js”> <html lang=”es-US” class”js flexbox”> |
|
Trump and Biden both have English primarily on their official websites. However, Biden also includes a language translation option for Spanish as well (deep in the menu). This is a lost opportunity for Trump since at least 13% of the US population speaks Spanish in their home and with many more being partially fluent or bilingual Americans, offering Spanish and English would demonstrate empathy and inclusion. Winner here (clearly): Biden
Robots File:
|
Robots.txt |
Present |
Content |
Winner |
|
Trump |
No |
n/a |
|
|
Biden |
User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-admin/ Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php |
|
Interesting enough, we could not find robots.txt file in Trump’s website at all. Winner here: Biden
XML Sitemap:
|
XML Sitemap |
Present |
Present in robots.txt |
Winner |
|
Trump |
No |
n/a |
|
|
Biden |
No
|
|
Trump’s website did not have a sitemap, but there was no real navigation to be had. Biden’s has a menu but forgot to place it in the robots.txt file.
Both sites could benefit from adding XML Sitemaps. Winner here: Neither
Broken Links:
|
Broken Links |
Found |
Winner |
|
Trump |
0 |
|
|
Biden |
0 |
|
Excellent maintenance from both websites. Winner here: Tie
Mobile Friendliness:
|
Mobile Friendliness |
Scale |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Good |
|
|
Biden |
Good |
|
Excellent responsiveness to devices from both websites. Winner here: Tie
Tap Target:
|
Mobile Friendliness |
Scale |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Perfect |
|
|
Biden |
Not Good |
|
Biden’s links and buttons are too small and too close to each other when used on mobile devises. That will create problem for some users.
Trump has very few buttons, but simple and direct. Winner here: Trump
Schema:
|
Schema.org |
Present |
Winner |
|
Trump |
No |
|
|
Biden |
Yes |
|
Schemas are used in machine driven engines and enable site attributes to be passed between devices and environments in a readable way. Biden’s site has the upper hand here. Winner: Biden
Open Graph Protocol (OGP):
|
Open Graph Protocol |
Present |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Yes |
|
|
Biden |
Yes |
|
OGP allows integration between social media, such as Facebook, etc. and a website’s content. Integrating tags into a page identifies elements of a site desirable to highlight when pages and links are shared. Both sites take advantage of using OGP and are well positioned in broad social media distributions. Winner here: Tie
Twitter Card:
|
Twitter card |
Present |
Missing |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Yes |
No |
|
|
Biden |
Yes |
twitter: title twitter: description |
|
Twitter Followers:
|
|
Followers |
Tweets |
Created |
Winner |
|
Trump |
85,316,164 |
54,693 |
11 years ago |
|
|
Biden |
8,000,000 |
5,644 |
13 years ago |
|
It’s unclear by how much each campaign uses Twitter for promoting their message. Clearly, Trump has been using Twitter for direct messaging for years and the strategy is subject of many debates. Biden’s campaign criticizes Trump’s use of Twitter, so they couldn’t possibly think copying the method would give them an edge. But there is no doubt both campaigns utilize Twitter, but Trump basically invented the method prior to the 2016 election. This category may be biased as it shows candidates involvement rather than the web site design but there is no comparison between Trump’s ability to tweet and the dry, corporate style of Biden’s staffs.
Winner here (clearly): Trump
SSL Secure:
|
SSL Secure |
Present |
Issues |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Yes |
Headers not properly set to use HSTS As of our scanning certificate shows they will expire in 5 days |
|
|
Biden |
Yes |
None |
|
Trump’s website SSL shows expiration that is awfully close to expire but that could be misleading if this is an auto applied certificate every so often. However, if the certificate is managed manually, it shows that system admins are waiting to the last moment to renew it or they just are not aware of it. Both are present and no indication that Trump’s will expire. For Biden, this is a non-issue. Winner here (marginally): Biden
Backlinks:
|
Backlinks |
Score |
count |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Very Good |
1,410,522 |
|
|
Biden |
Good |
822,295 |
|
Looking into one of the most important criteria for establishing website ranking in search engines, Trump’s website drives the lead by a significant margin. This is probably because Trump’s site is older than Biden’s and carries an advantage of hard path history. Regardless, numbers of backlinks for each site is enormous, as one might expect. Winner here (based on raw #’s): Trump
Website Traffic:
|
Traffic |
Score |
Rank - World |
Rank - USA |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Very High |
7,389 |
1,484 |
|
|
Biden |
Very High |
10,411 |
1,376 |
|
Both sites pull extremely competitive and aggressive ranking in USA and the world. It looks like Trump’s site has stronger backlink weight and that may give him an advantage over time. Regardless, rankings for each site is enormous, as one might expect. Winner here (based on raw #’s): Trump but wegive Biden credit.
Facebook:
|
|
Shares |
Comments |
Likes |
Winner |
|
Trump |
363,136 |
386,114 |
1,003,001 |
|
|
Biden |
99,649 |
153,517 |
491,471 |
|
Trump’s site clearly leads in this category and that is interesting considering Biden’s perceived support from Silicon Valley firms and recent Facebook public criticism and comments. Winner here: Trump
Number of Requests
|
|
Request |
Weight |
First Byte |
Start Render |
Fully Loaded |
Winner |
|
Trump |
73 |
1.2 |
0.16 |
0.87 |
2.72 |
|
|
Biden |
72 |
2.16 |
0.14 |
0.93 |
3.26 |
|
Trump’s website is very lightweight and easier to load. It therefore loads much faster by almost half a sec vs. Biden’s in a conventional Wi-Fi environment (~50Mbps). That could play a significant role when mobile or low speed internet users are in play. Most of rural and even much of the suburban USA does not have high speed, fiber optic internet performance and this gives an edge in communication to a broad audience. Winner: Trump
Single Point of Failure
|
Single Point of Failure |
Detected |
Content |
Winner |
|
Trump |
None |
n/a |
|
|
Biden |
1 |
https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css |
|
Biden’s site has serious dependency that Trump does not have. If Biden’s site of dependency should should fail, it will cripple his primary website with no way of recovery until that site of his dependency is recovered or removed. Winner here: Trump
Java Script Parsing – Defer Parsing:
|
|
( # ) |
Weight |
Content |
Winner |
|
Trump |
0 |
|
n/a |
|
|
Biden |
3 |
270 |
- https://cdn.optimizely.com/js/18214532831.js -https://joebiden.com/wp-content/themes/bexc/js/min/ modernizr.min.js?ver=3.6.0 - https://joebiden.com/wp-content/themes/bexc/js/min/modernizr.min.js?ver=3.6.0 |
|
Trump’s website is clearly not troubled with this, while Biden team may take note. Winner here: Trump
Content Security Policy:
|
|
Security Policy |
Winner |
|
Trump |
Missing |
|
|
Biden |
Present |
|
Biden’s website is clearly not troubled with this, while Trump’s team may take note. Winner here: Biden
Unreachable Resources:
|
|
Missing – 403 error |
Content |
Winner |
|
Trump |
No |
n/a |
|
|
Biden |
Yes |
https://tickerapi.joebiden.com/donors |
|
The missing 403 error message is perhaps leftover from deleted content or a placeholder for an incomplete feature of the website. The presence of a 403 error shows some interesting approach to retrieve, in real time, the running donor data as we believe it was intended, but for some reason has not materialized. If you are going to do it, you must do it or trim your loose ends. Winner here: Trump
Summary:
Both sites follow contemporary design standards for building secure and user-friendly approach. The Trump site has a slight advantage that may be due to it being more mature, having been built and experienced the 2016 campaign cycle already. Also, Trump’s site has enormous coverage while Biden’s is just covering check the box and making campaign merchandise available and collecting some revenue from it.
If designers of the web sites fix the minor issues pointed out above, they would likely see a slight bump in overall website ranking and presumably more donations and exposure. Search engine optimization is a contemporary term all political campaigns would be wise to embrace. Not just at the presidential level, but all the way through the spectrum to local and municipal elections. These SEO’s and techniques are not just for the big races any longer. ScaleCampaign.com can help with this as we have for many of our commercial clients, increasing their site traffic and effectiveness. Modern technology such as voter data analytics are available from sites such as WalkList.com. And geo coding techniques using sites such as csv2geo.com to map out a campaign’s “boots on the ground” strategies, these methods have become widely available to almost anyone.
At Scale Campaign we are always helping those needing software solutions. With ScaleCampaign on your team, Winner here: You and your campaign!
Referenced for this article include:
https://www.dareboost.com/en/report/a_15f4bca3790b99835274c8b93?reportIds=a_15f4bca3790b99835274c8b93
https://www.dareboost.com/en/report/a_35f4bca7e63b258286eb6be9e?reportIds=a_35f4bca7e63b258286eb6be9e
Woorank, Dareboost, csv2geo, worthofweb
Wikipedia for demographic statistics on Spanish/English USA households
Google Search for some acronym definitions and contextual description
Previous article: Voter Data - an Item You Need for a Political Campaign
Follow us on twitter and like us on Facebook.
